Yet Another Post Ruminating on the Medium Partner Program Changes

It’s in all of our best interests to work together to grow this community.

Author photo of an exhibit at the Delaware Children’s Museum, June 2010.

If the air seemed a bit electrified earlier today — or if some writers you know appeared rattled and out of sorts— you can thank the Medium powers-that-be. As those of us who are members of the Medium Partner Program learned, some significant changes were announced regarding how stories earn money. In true Medium style, within nanoseconds the platform was flooded with opinions.

Needless to say, I can’t resist offering my own two cents.

First, though, here’s the main takeaway from what we learned today:

Instead of paying based on claps as the main signal, we will now reward stories primarily based on reading time, which we’ve seen to be a closer measure of quality and resonance with readers. (source: “Improving how we calculate writer earnings” by Emma Smith, for 3 Min Read, the official Medium blog.)

My first thought upon reading this was to fall down on my knees screaming halle-freakin’-lujah because effective immediately, the tiresome discussion about whether or not claps contribute to our earnings and if so, how much, and does it matter if we clap once or the allotted 50 times and yada yada yada…is over…